Even though I have considered my self a model railroader for a long time, there is a ton of stuff I have never tried.  I rely a lot on books and articles to give me tips and techniques and then tweak or discard as applicable.  Since I have Dave Frary's scenery book and he mentioned that Sculptamold was one of his favorite things for making ground contours, I thought would give it a try.  

One of my mines is on a grade. I needed a way to hold the cars while I switched out the loads and empties. I tried all sorts of ideas, from nearly unseen 17 pound fishing line, just high enough to press against the axles, (didn't hold enough weight) to wire bent to fold up and down.

 The wire ones worked, but I did not want people reaching into my layout to work them. Too many things can go wrong when you have to reach over cars, engines and scenery to work a brake or uncoupler.

So with my club layout area spruced up and the chores out of the way - those other projects I had on the burners, though there's a lot still on there! - I took a moment to relax with a little work...this has been in the works, while I plotted out my $500 layout...I've embellished upon the initial plan quite a bit, so we're a bit beyond the scope of the initial $500 "getting started" project.

I went ahead and put all the prior work in this blog here:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/10350#comment-82787

Here are some pictures of the scratch built structure I submitted for AP Merit points. After judging it received 92 pts out of 125 max.

Richard

So this all started about a month ago when a message was left on my voicemail at work by the owner of what was the best hobby shop in Salem, OR before he retired and closed it. We also have a relationship through my current job as well. Suffice it to say, he knew I was into model railroading. 

If you've been following our series of blogs (and much to my surprise, there are quite a few) then you already know the story. This past May, I lost my friend and father-in-law soon after having lost my own father. My father was a rabid model railroader, and I too, was bitten at an early age. My father-in-law shared no such interest, but the circumstances surrounding his passing left us with an eight by eighteen foot moving van body smack dab in the middle of our front yard.